


Let The Cat Out Of The Bag

by james



Series: Cats and Witchers, Oh My [6]
Category: Wiedźmin | The Witcher - All Media Types
Genre: Geralt doesn't know that, Humor, M/M, Mild Angst, Non-Human Jaskier | Dandelion, So mild there isn't really anything wrong, Werecats
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-23
Updated: 2020-06-23
Packaged: 2021-03-04 06:22:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,613
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24869077
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/james/pseuds/james
Summary: Geralt is panicking, as much as a Witcher can.  Yennefer would like to read her book and stop knowing these two dumb boys.  Except for how they owe her so many favors.
Relationships: Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia/Jaskier | Dandelion
Series: Cats and Witchers, Oh My [6]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1771585
Comments: 26
Kudos: 465





	Let The Cat Out Of The Bag

When Geralt knocked, Yennefer didn't get up, didn't answer the door, didn't put her book away. She'd known – felt – Geralt when he'd got near town, felt him getting closer, heard him pounding loudly on her front door and yelling her name. After another moment, she waved the door open. Let him flounder a bit, finding his way to her in the library.

It didn't actually take him long at all; she realised he could probably hear her heartbeat or smell her, or something. She knew these things, knew all there was for a non-Witcher to know about Witchers (which wasn't everything, but she was working on it.) But somehow she kept forgetting the most basic of things about Geralt, like how fucking stubborn and annoying he was.

She let him wait, standing in the middle of the library, as she finished the paragraph she was reading. He was breathing hard, but stood quietly, waiting. Finally she leant back and placed a bookmark in her book and looked over at him – and frowned. “Why is Jaskier in a sack?”

Geralt was holding a fabric bag in his hands, and it looked like nice expensive velvet, dyed a deep red color with fine silver decoration around the edges. Exactly the sort of sack Jaskier would insist upon if he had actually had some say in being carried around in a sack. Geralt was frowning as he held it out to her.

Yennefer did not take it.

She waited, letting her obvious lack of questions serve as her _What the fuck are you up to._ Geralt was clearly worried, almost – well, not frantic, but leaning in that very general direction. Witchers did not get frantic; it was part of the way their brains got re-wired during the Trials. They didn't feel fear the way humans did, and didn't panic. 

For a Witcher, then, Geralt was practically hysterical.

“He's stuck.” Geralt was still holding the bag out to her.

She still didn't take it. As soon as she touched the thing, she knew Geralt would assume that meant she was taking _responsibility,_ and that was absolutely not happening. She liked Jaskier, but liking him and being responsible for him were two vastly different things. “Then let him out?” she offered, when Geralt just stood there, holding the bag out.

With a frustrated huff, Geralt shook his head, started to shake the bag then caught himself with another frantic-for-him expression. “He can't change. He's been in cat form for two weeks.”

Ah. Well, that explained it. Yennefer considered the sack, noting how Jaskier, inside it, wasn't really moving much. Calm, then, if not sound asleep. “Let him out,” she said, knowing she might end up regretting it, but at least it meant Geralt would owe her another favor.

Holding the sack carefully, Geralt knelt down, cupping Jaskier's body in one hand and untying the cord. He set Jaskier on the carpet gently, easing the sides of the sack away from him like he were a delicate creature and not a feral hell-beast of a cat and bard.

Jaskier lifted his head and blinked, as though just waking up. She waited as he looked around, saw Geralt and rubbed his cheek against Geralt's fingers. As if he couldn't help himself despite his worry, Geralt smiled and scratched him behind the ears. Jaskier allowed it for a moment, then he stood, stretched his entire body so hard that Yennefer felt her own body reacting. Then he stepped delicately out of the sack and walked towards her. He sniffed at the edge of her skirt, then began to explore along the edge of her desk.

Yennefer skimmed the surface of his thoughts lightly. Normally, in human form, his head was full of song lyrics and sex – usually about Geralt, but not always. In cat form his thoughts had no words, just feelings and instincts. Right now he was calm, curious, and completely uninterested in the scent of the mice that had lived in the baseboards before Yennefer took over the house.

“He isn't cursed,” she said after a moment. “Not any more than usual,” she added, and laughed when Geralt looked alarmed. 

Geralt glared at her for a moment, then his shoulders fell. “Oh. You mean when he stole your yellow coat.”

“And returned it stained with mud, torn, and even then he looked better in it than I ever did.” Yennefer gave the cat a glare, which was entirely ignored.

She hadn't actually _cursed_ him, but she'd said a lot of things that she did mean every word of, thank you Geralt, and someone still owed her a jacket.

Jaskier had brought her a very nice and very expensive pendant as a downpayment on a new jacket, which she did appreciate. And he'd told her all about his evening and how the coat had come to get torn, and that story not even Geralt knew all the details of.

“But can you help him?” Geralt still sounded worried.

She held out her hand. “There's nothing wrong with him.” 

“He hasn't changed for _two weeks_ ,” he said, teeth clenching together as he tried to hide the depth of his concern. He looked down at Jaskier, who was turning a slow circle in the patch of sunlight streaming in through a magicked window. It was chilly outside and cloudy; this sunlight was from two hundred miles away.

Yennefer started to tell him again there was nothing wrong, but then she took a peek into Geralt's mind. Of course.

There were stories. Myths, rumors, cautionary tales about shifters. Stories about shifters who forgot to change back and never did again. Shifters who lost themselves to their animal forms and forgot they could ever turn into human. Jaskier himself sang sad songs about lovers and families left behind when a shifter took to their animal form, going back to woods or ocean or mountains and never seen again.

Yennefer was fairly sure he didn't sing those songs around Geralt, but that didn't mean Geralt was unaware of them. But she also knew they were only _stories._ When she'd met Jaskier, she'd gone and read everything she could find, spoken to some of the oldest mages and learned everything there was to know. 

Mostly so Jaskier couldn't lord it over her that he knew things she didn't, neener, neener. He'd done it once, changing forms rapidly back and forth without stopping when she'd made a comment about the energy restrictions of shifting. She'd since learned how shifters tapped into chaos to fuel the shift, how their mass was stored as energy when they took a smaller form, and Jaskier had been forced to stop being smug at her once he realised she knew more about it than he did.

(Barely, and it was because she knew a few things about snake shifters that he hadn't, but it was knowledge and it counted, so take that Jaskier, Master of Seven Liberal Arts.)

Yennefer sighed. “It happens sometimes, you know that. He'll shift back when he's ready.”

From the way Geralt was frowning, she knew he didn't believe her. She would have just left it at that, except for how she didn't like seeing the look behind his worry – Witchers might not feel fear when facing monsters, but Geralt was desperately trying not to be frightened now. Jaskier was curled up in the sun, napping without regard for either of them, and Geralt was looking at him like he might never see the human face of his mate ever again.

Yennefer glanced up at the ceiling, wondering why she had ever let Geralt know where she was staying. She did consider them friends – and yes, that included Jaskier even when he was being a shit (possibly moreso, if she were being honest.) But she'd had plans to spend the day reading, and she had a lovely bottle of red wine waiting for her to have with lunch, and none of her plans for the entire month had involved holding Geralt's hand while his cat drove him nuts.

There was no reason to think Jaskier wouldn't shift back, there was no spell in place and despite the lack of coherent thought he did clearly still know who Geralt was. Presumably if Geralt asked him to, he would shift.

Yennefer narrowed her eyes.

Surely not.

“Did you try asking him to shift back?”

Thank the gods, Geralt glared at her and nodded. “Of course! I tried everything I could think of. I even asked Mordain to keep him for a couple of days, hoping that his...cat-like nature in human form would encourage him.” Geralt shook his head and sat down cross-legged on the floor, facing towards Jaskier, every inch of his posture screaming dejection.

“Hmm,” Yennefer said, and despite it being a very accurate rendition, Geralt didn't seem to notice. (She and Jaskier had once had an entire conversation in Geralt-grunts, to their delight and Geralt's annoyance.) But right now she meant it – she really didn't know what to say. She wasn't sure if she just needed to distract Geralt and give Jaskier time to decide to shift, or just kick them both out and so she could enjoy her lunch.

As much as she wanted to, she also didn't really want to see Geralt suffer.

She sighed. Well, maybe if she distracted him a bit, he'd at least stop moping on her carpet. “What happened right before he shifted? Was there anything unusual, magic amulets, strange creatures babbling in rhyme, jilted lovers screeching at him...?”

Geralt sighed, deeply. “We were at Kaer Morhen, still. We were getting ready to set out – Jaskier wanted to travel to a bardic competition at Oxenfurt that happens later in the spring. He wanted to get there early, at least a month, so he could 'get a feel for the audience.' I don't know what that means, other than drinking with his University friends.”

“The competition hasn't happened yet?” That might explain more of Geralt's concern, if Jaskier was in danger of missing the competition from being stuck in cat form.

Geralt shook his head. “There's still two weeks. We have time, if... if he....” He gestured towards Jaskier, who was laying still, except for the tip of his tail twitching.

“And then he shifted?”

Geralt nodded, then stopped. “He was working on a song. Just...the first parts of it, it wasn't really a song yet. He was asking me about it, what I thought of it.”

“And what did you think of it?”

“You know me, Yen, what do I know about music? I told him to ask Eskel – he at least reads poetry sometimes, and can hum a tune if you hold a knife to his throat.”

“Then he shifted?”

Geralt shook his head. “He was fine the rest of the day. We had supper, everything was fine, we went to bed. When I woke up he was in cat form and hasn't changed back.”

Yennefer glanced over at Jaskier and realised he was not asleep at all. He was listening, pretending to ignore them-- oh. Yennefer pressed her fingers to her forehead. She did not have enough wine to deal with these two.

“So, you're saying that your beloved mate was working on a new song for a bardic event that he was very excited about to the point of arriving early to scout out the competition, and when he asked for your opinion on said song, you just grunted and told him to go bother someone else.”

Geralt scowled at her. “That isn't... I didn't tell him to stop bothering me. I just didn't know anything about the song. I don't know music--”

“You've been married to a bard for how many years now, and you know nothing about music?” Yennefer didn't try to hide how unimpressed she was with Geralt's claim.

Geralt was scowling harder, now. “We're not actually-- yes, all right.” He held up his hands as she made a fist at him. “We've been together for several years and neither of us agrees exactly how many since we don't agree on what counts as 'getting together.' We're married and I have several of his songs memorised even though I can't fucking sing and I _don't know anything about music._ ”

“Do you know when you like a song?” It was like pulling intestines out of a bogbeast. Slow, slimy, and it smelled bad. 

There was a long moment when she thought Geralt wasn't going to answer, then he sighed. “Yes, fine, I know when I like a song. And when I don't like a song.”

“Did you like the song he was working on?” Why she was doing all this for Jaskier, she wasn't really sure, except this meant she got to watch Geralt when he finally realised what was going on.

If he did.

“It... I could't tell. It wasn't much of anything, just a couple of lines and a little piece of music.” He spread his hands out, looking tired again. Defeated. But then he hummed a bit, and even though Yennefer could hear that it was badly out of tune, it was definitely something.

Jaskier's ear twitched.

Yennefer wanted to put her face in her hands. Instead, she said, “Geralt, I believe that if you fucking apologise to Jaskier for ignoring him, he might stop torturing you.”

Geralt blinked. Yennefer glared at him, and Jaskier stayed right where he was, still acting like he was sleeping, but no longer doing a very good job of it.

She felt a little like torturing Jaskier, after this. Maybe he would owe her a new coat and a pair of boots.

Geralt looked over at Jaskier. “You...he's doing this on purpose?”

“I can't say for certain, except there is nothing on him preventing him from changing back and there is a very large, stupid reason on my floor why he would stay in cat form until you are sorry and apologise.” She glared at Jaskier. “It helps if you let him know he's supposed to be apologising.”

Jaskier blinked.

“You're doing this on purpose?” Geralt sounded angry at first, but then his tone trailed off and he simply crawled over to Jaskier, lying on his stomach near enough to put his face very close to Jaskier's. “You're just mad at me? You're not.... I'm not going to lose you to this?”

He sounded grateful, hopeful, and if Jaskier didn't shift back, she was going to take Geralt away from him and keep him, herself. 

But Jaskier pressed his nose to Geralt's, lightly, then licked him. Then he leaned back and shifted forms.

Yennefer wrinkled her nose. She normally didn't mind naked young men kneeling on her floor, but if she told Jaskier how good he looked, he'd never stop preening.

“If you two don't mind, I am going to have lunch. _Alone_.” She stood up and walked to the door, waving her hand to open a portal behind her. She looked back, and saw that Jaskier was in Geralt's lap, their heads bent together, arms wrapped tightly around each other.

With another wave of her hand, she flipped the two of them through the portal to Kaer Morhen.

Well. Technically a half mile out. Jaskier did owe her a nice pair of boots after all. He could walk. Or Geralt could carry him. She didn't care, didn't want to know, and she was going to need a second bottle of wine.

She grabbed a xenovox on her way to the dining room, and rang up Triss. “Bring wine,” was all she said. 

“The boys?” Triss asked, and Yennefer nodded. Triss sighed. “I'll bring wine.”


End file.
